Food with Friends

Saturday, I had  two couples over.  One couple we have known for many years, the other we have recently met.  The latter has lived in my neighborhood, but not 'near'.  So they are a "nye" neighbor.  There will be six of us, and that makes for a fun and intimate dinner.

My guests wanted to bring something.  I'm not a good appetizer planner, so I suggested appetizers. My menu is as follows:

Wine braised duck legs (with dried fruits)
Butternut squash ravioli with brocoli rabe
Pumpkin spoonbread
Apple/Kale Waldorf Salad, though I might substitute this for roasted pear and blue cheese salad.
Lemon Pie in a shortbread crust.

I think that any dessert with lemon is a nice ending for a rich dinner with duck--though this dessert was plenty rich.   I'm going to try my hand at making the ravioli.  I couldn't find it the last time that I made this dish and substituted cheese ravioli.  It was a sub-par substitute.

As I had to go to the Chinese market to get the duck legs, I found some wonton wrappers.  I roasted the butternut squash and added shallots and cream from an Emeril Lagasse recipe to fill them. It was easy to use the wontons.  I made a egg wash to seal, careful to press out the air.  I elected to freeze them thinking that would make them easier to handle.  I boiled them, but they became what I considered water logged.  I scooped them out and put them in a non-stick pan and dried them.  They were exceptional.

As I had more roasted Butternut squash than needed to process to filling, I substituted the squash for the pumpkin in the shortbread.  It was fantastic.

The Lemon Pie had Chef John Folse's filling from his Lemon Creme Brulee Tart coupled with a shortbread crust  (with ground almonds) v the one for his dessert.  Chef John has many wonderful recipes on his website, and they will be great arrows in your culinary quiver.  Make sure to take a look!  You will not be sorry.  His "Good Lovin'" brownies are stupendous.  One reason to be an intrepid cook is that you quickly learn how you can cobble together different recipes.  Often I'll substitute crusts for different tart/pie fillings.

I skipped the broiling of the top as I was going to served it with fresh raspberries and whipped cream (from my oh-so-handy whip cream dispenser.  I used lemon extract and confectioners sugar to flavor the cream.  It was a lovely and delicious ending to our meal.  I consider a meal like a job interview:  First impressions matter; last impressions linger.  I always like to have a Wow! dessert. Note that Wow desserts do not have to be difficult.  This dessert was easy (with the crust substitution); nevertheless it was elegant and delicious.

We had a great time.  One of my guests commented that he had worked at one of Williamsburg's finest restaurants for a short time, and that our meal rivaled anything that he had been a part of down there.  It was high praise.

Few things are as enjoyable as food with friends, and I'm grateful to have both.

Amazon Reviews Lament

I don't know about you guys, but when I read reviews, I want a review written by someone who purchased the product without concession, used it and comments on it. I am seeing an abundance of reviews, particularly for cheap stuff that has what I would consider an inordinate amount of reviews.  And, the subset of those reviews is a large amount of "I received this product in exchanged for my unbiased review."

I understand a smattering of these.  However, when almost every single review is like this, I don't consider these either valid or helpful.  In fact, it makes me want to move on to another product.  I simply don't trust a product that has to resort to so much 'paid' testimonials.  Further, despite the "unbiased review" proclamations, what you pay cannot help bu influence how you feel about a product--good intentions aside.

Rather, I want to see a review from a verified purchaser who shelled out his/her own money at full tilt, and hear about their buying experience.  Further, for rinky-dink products with tons of reviews with a high percentage of concessioned or free product, I just don't trust them.








DIY Bird Feeder using Rat Wire, Suet and Trees

With the last snow storm, our birds were struggling to find food and compete with the blackbirds (or grackles) that were marauding the feeder.  The marauders have to eat, too.  I wanted to put out a couple of more feeders with homemade suet.  I lacked containers, so I asked husbando if he had an appropriate wire available.

He indicated that he had a piece of rat wire.  After studying many clever ways of making a suet holder for the rat wire.  I wasn't up to making a wood frame.  I toyed with a number of other alternatives.  After brief consideration, and because the wire is pretty darn stiff, I determined that so long as I had a good tree crook, I could use the tree to provide the structure.
Rat wire

 I cut the piece of rat wire that I had in two (it could not have been more than a 9" x 15" piece). on simply cutting the piece that I had in two.  Rat wire is easy relatively easy for a novice to work with.  It is very STIFF!  That stiffness is why it works so well in this application.  Also, the ends, if they protrude as they do on the picture, will scratch you badly.

I had a pair of nippers and wire cutters.  The nippers seem to work more easily for cutting off all of the sharp ends all of the way around on each of my 2 pieces.  That was the most time consuming part of the projet.  .  You could also use Kline's, needle nose or craft wire cutters. 

After clipping, bent it gently rolled it lengthwise so that I could place suet in it and shove into a crook of the tree.  Because the wire is so stiff, once shoved into a sturdy enough croor, it is unbelievably secure.  The wire (and the tree) give the birds lots of purchase for perching and eating.   You could also shove pencils or a wooden dowels through to provide additional places for perching.


I took a picture.  My bird friends have been enjoying it from all angles--perched on any of the edges.

In fact, as I was taking this picture, the birds were scolding me to go away so that they could eat.  This feeder is in the crook of a Japanese maple tree in front of my house.  I can look out my office window and seeThe juncos and the downey wood pecker have been particularly frequenting it.  As I write a pair of blue jays have found it.  The finches don't eat from it, but they hog almost every perch on the regular feeder.  Luckily they shove their bill in like a shovel and spill seed for the ground feeders.

For the mix, I simply melted down lard, crunchy natural peanut butter (which I found at my salvage store) with corn meal and then mixed in a millet seed mix.  As the oils are room temperature hard, once it sets, it is sturdy.  Accordingly the rat wire structure simply needs to provide an extended support beyond the tree crook.   A 2' x 5' piece of rat wire is $8.77 at Home Depot.  You can make a lot of inexpensive bird feeders using this inexpensive wire.  If you don't have wire cutters, they are inexpensive. 

After you make your mix and let it set up, set your wire on some wax paper.  Glop your hardened mix on top the wire and compress it (use another piece of wax paper for the top side).  You now have a solid piece of food that your feathered friends will delight in.

If you like to feed birds, this is a skill-friendly (e.g. novice), budget-friendly way to help your feathered friends out during the winter and early spring. If you don't have wire cutters, consider getting some so that you can complete easy projects such as this.   Suet and summer are not compatible.  You can take your wire down, clean it and be ready for the next season!

Intrepid Soapmaking - | Batch 3, 4, 5

After two successful batches of soap, Batch 3, a hot process soap, proved disastrous.  I did not heed the admonitions to watch the crockpot (it was big, batch was small, and I figured the risk was negligible).  Wrong, in a big way.  The soap bubbled out in a big gooey mess.  I was not able to get the batch to non-zap stage after 3 hours.   Either I measured something wrong (I'm thinking that I must have left out some oil inadvertently (best not to be distracted in any way!) or the overflow caused an imbalance among the remainder ingredients.  As everything was mixed thoroughly, I would have expected homogeneity among all of the ingredients, as you would a cake. I threw it out. 

As I have some homemade soap,my knickers were not in a bind to have instant gratification.  Accordingly, I elected to try my hand at cold process soaps.  To be sure, cold process is where all of the too-good-you-could-almost-eat-it soaps come into play.  I decided to be simple.

Batch 4 which was my first cold process was one in which I incorporated kaolin clay and activated charcoal. It made very pretty bars of soap, though I'm ill-practiced at making design in soap.   However, I'm pleased with how pretty the soap came out (below).
Kaolin and activated charcoal

Coconut milk soap

Batch 5 was an attempt to make soap with coconut milk.  Picture above.  I've seen quite a few videos about freezing milk etc.  to prevent scorching.  However I stumbled upon a North Carolina Soapers page, and several folks noted that the substituted part of the water for milk (butter, coconut, etc), and added that at the thin trace stage. (Though one commenter mentioned she had problems with this, and did not illuminate more).  Adding at trace bypassed the cooking of the milk in the lye.  The soap above is  3 days.  It appears to be crumbling around the inner core.  PFFFFTTT!

I have no experience with any of this, but I elected to give it a try.  My lye solution was very concentrated, and it was not clear. In fact it was grainy.  ( I have since read that no more than 1/2 of the water required should be substituted with milk, and my solution fell within those guidelines).   I'm sure this was due to reduced water at this stage and there simply not being enough liquid to dissolve the lye.  Nevertheless, all appeared to incorporate well.  As warned, once the milk was added it would begin to set up quickly, so moved quickly to mold.

I'm unclear to gel or not to gel for this soap--I'll do some more research.  For this batch, I'll simply choose no gel.  The batch began to heat quickly in the loaf pan. It's freezing cold outside, so rather than put in the freezer, I simply put it on the deck rail.

To determine the quality of my 'recipe', I'll have to wait at least 6 weeks. When I unmolded, there was only a small amount of gelling in the middle.  The soap was brilliantly, beautifully white. (But now crumbly!)

P. S.  Update on my soaps.  Both of these soaps are spectacular.  The lather is rich and creamy, and they are a joy to use.  I've been sharing my soap making bounty with people in my life.  They, too, are enjoying using these luscious soaps.

Soap Making Redux | Lye: Little Pot of Horrors

As I mentioned in my earlier post mixing of lye was the scariest part of making lye.  I wanted to have a singular post on sharing my observations on that. Containers:  I see that people suggest using different kinds of container for mixing lye:  plastic, shatterproof glass, stainless steel.  I want to offer some commentary on that.

  1.  Plastic:  Because of the extreme heat given off, I would be wary of using any kind of plastic as the heat could leach out chemicals from the plastic (much like the admonitions of using plastic in the microwave).  Further, if you are new to soap making, the wrong choice of plastic, whose properties you may not be aware of under extreme conditions, could result in a melt down and a potential breach in the container.
  2. Mixing lye:  Some say use plastic, metal or wood.  I used a very long handled stainless steel spoon.  I feel that using a whisk is the right implement though and will do so in future.
  3. Glass: Pyrex when subjected to extreme heat conditions will shatter.  Having a Pyrex container in an ice bath when the lye is boiling away is one such condition.  I've had a Pyrex dish shatter by placing a cooler dish in a hot oven.  It contained only cornbread mix--not a deadly caustic chemical mixture such as lye.  I think that there is too much risk involved to use this container.  Yes, I've only had one Pyrex dish break on me in regular cooking in 3 decades, but it happens.
  4. Stainless Steel:  This is a two thumbs up.  It cannot breach, leach or break. And if you saw the rate of descent of that pot in the snow bank, you would understand why I wrote this post.  I used an asparagus pot.  It's tall and deep, and I felt that there I could handle it easily and that there would be no sloshing.  Would I use my pot to steam asparagus after dissolving lye?  A resounding yes. What possible danger could be lurking in stainless steel?  However, I did put a vinegar solution in everything touching the lye to ensure neutralization. And put everything in the dishwasher.

Measuring container for lye:  Another scary thing that I mentioned in my previous post was the electrical charge of the lye beads and the clear plastic cup that I used.  The beads actual went places that they were not supposed to go (on the stainless steel table).  Now these were maybe 20 or so beads (think head of a pin small), but one is too many.  My expectation is that my measuring cup should not interact at all with the contents--electrically or chemically.  Because of the static, I had some stray beads in my cup.  I will use a different vehicle in the future. I believe this to be the properties of the clear, hard, clear plastic. It's winter, and the air is dry.  I'm confident that in the summer this would not be a problem.

Measuring lye:  I read one place where measurements for lye were given using measuring cups v weight.  I would recommend using a weight scale. I have no baseline experience to give such advice except my cooking experience and the importance of lye to oil measurements.  It can be used for your soap making, and you will appreciate it for your baking needs as well.  It is so much faster to weigh ingredients than measure. If you are worried about having to look up values, put the weight values on the container in which you are storing your dry ingredients.

My bars of soap are very hard this a.m.  I attribute that to the addition of the beeswax.

My husband used some soap this a.m. and was very pleased.  I'm hooked!


Soap!

Today I took my maiden voyage into soap making.  My goal here is not to tell you how to make soap, merely document my experience today.

I was given some handmade soap which I found to be quite luxurious.  I then became curious as to how soap was made; I did my internet immersion (and I would suggest you do so as well); purchased basic supplies from Bulk Apothecary; and did other things to make time for this project.  Today, I found enough time to make the soap.  As I don't want my first batch of soap to be ready in 2+ months using cold process, I elected to use a hot process vis a vis the crockpot.

There are lots of recipes online for soap.  I wanted to do something with oil that I had on hand:  coconut oil (76deg), grape seed oil, olive oil, canola oil.  I also had some yellow beeswax for another project that I'll tell you about some other time.

Soap making is like baking--it is a science and requires basic ratios of stuff to make it work.  Old hands will say they wing it, but when you wing it, you are successful because you've got lots of experience. SoapCalc is an easy interface (a marvel really!).  It is a measurement and diagnostic tool that will allow you to dial in your ingredients to get a 'soap bar quality' that meets your needs.

After an inordinate amount of time futzing around with percentages of oil yielding sub-par overall qualities, I laid out all of my oil ingredients in Excel and input the profile of each ingredient so that I could eyeball where changing proportions would move the needle on the profile elements.The table shows the qualities of the oils that I had planned on using(from SoapCalc). SoapCalc also has a downoadable Excel file that you can find here. I messed around with the ratios until I was able to get within the recommended ranges.  I'm high on cleansing and low on creamy.  The INS is at 160 as an ideal (according to the calculator), so I feel that I'm okay.  This is after all a maiden voyage.

Once you have your percentages to get to the ideal soap profile, you have to decide on your yield.  I decided 3 lbs.  It turns out that is about 2 loaf pans worth.  Below is the SoapCalc recipe using the ingredients I selected. As a note:  I think that I have too much coconut oil and that this percentage might be overall drying according to about.com which I think has a great overview of soap making.   And...in lbs, ounces and grams!



 I have an electronic scale, and I measured everything precisely. The scariest thing about working with this stuff is the lye. (I've worked with many noxious chemicals, but not one that burns instantly through your skin). Here's a good recap of precautions to use.   I used a clear, plastic cup, but I noticed that the static electricity made some of the granules (little that they are) jump about onto my table. Much like those little beads in bean bags--they have much static electricity in them.  That was a surprise. (Note to self--use a different measuring vehicle!)

I mixed my lye to water in a stainless steel container (an asparagus cooker which is very tall and narrow--perfect for keeping the noxious elements nestled below casualty level!) sitting in snow outside.  Lye to water  or "L" before "W" is a necessary step.  Otherwise bad things can happen.  Noxious fumes were released, and I stood well away.  No breeze today, so no danger there. It began to boil and the container got very hot and started sinking in the snow.  Yep....that hot. I have a post on the container.....

After mixing my oils together, including my beeswax grains which were floating around whole,  I realized that I had no idea what the melting temperature was for beeswax.  Well...it is higher than the oil melt point at 144.  My crockpot temperature was much higher (235F) than the 170F top end recommended for bees wax.  However, I don't think that there were any ill effects from this.  Why did I used wax?  I needed it as a hardening agent.

To determine if saponification, the process of the lye turning the oils to soap  (why isn't this word "soaponification"?!), has been reached there is something called a zap test (touch tongue to cooled sample).  Personally, I would prefer a less 'tongue on' approach.  I bought some pH strips just now on Amazon.

I see admonitions about not using your soap making tools as anything else.  However, I used stainless steel tools, and I can see no way these could be compromised. What was left in the crockpot was soap, so I'm unsure how this is a problem.  Silicone based spatulas or molds and any plastic items should be fully reserved for soap and nothing else.

I had some annatto seed powder, so I dumped a couple of teaspoons in for color.  I ladled the soap into silicone loaf pans that I put inside glass loaf pan for stability.  I bought these at a salvage store, so they were very cheap.

All in all it was an interesting project.  I'm looking forward to making more batches--and developing a feel for doing it naturally v. having to ape the directions.  Below is a picture of a finished bar up close.  It really is a lovely color, and I will certainly use this again.  I have a concern that the whitish spot on the lower third may be a spot of incomplete saponification. 


It was a cool day and I put the containers on the deck to cool.  They hardened quickly, and I cut them withing 4 hours of making them.  I did a test run of a piece of soap, and I'm very happy with the lather and feel. 

Update:  I've been using this soap to clean--yep clean!  It has very good cleaning properties.

Other post-post comments--safety thoughts.  I have my safety monitor vest on--

  • Pouring lye mixture into oils:  pour lye over a spoon to prevent plopping. (Of course you have your safety glasses and gloves on.)  I've seen this done in many videos, but no commentary about it.
  • Immersion Blender:  One should use great care in using the immersion blender.  I have a larger crockpot, so my mixture was shallow.  I used the lid as a shield between me and the blender until it thickened.
  • Fumes:  Beware of the fumes from a covered crockpot that you uncover (as well as your lye mixture initially).
  • A watched pot does not burn:  Uhm....my 3rd soap batch boiled over.  Enuf said.

Salvage Store and Other Stuff

The salvage store nearby is a great place to find great bargains on 'stuff'.  Because the inventory turns over so quickly, there are always great finds.  But you have to get it quick or it is gone, though I have noted a few things that have languished for some time--largely due to the expiration date to be far too long in the past even for the most intrepid risk takers.

Post holidays (Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's day), there are always confections available at extraordinary prices.  Let's face it, confections will last 10 years, so if it is one month out, I don't call that intrepid risk taking.

My recent visit yielded these fabulous Lebkuchen cookies.  Below is from the German website (this was an imported product. Great for the tastebuds, not for the waistline--the cookie is 1/3 ground nuts.  Though not too sweet it has an amazing 'tooth'.  I'm hoping there will not be any of them there my next visit..  If you see these anywhere, get them.

The store also had San Marzano peeled tomatoes in the 6lb can (imported from Italy).  It said "with basil."  I'm not a big fan of 'with basil' tomato products, so I only bought 2 cans.  Well the product had real basil in it, not basis 'flavor'.  I made some marinara sauce , and I have to say it is a product superior to any that I've had.  On my next trip back, sold out. Sniff!

I'm on post holiday detox now, having eaten indiscriminately over the holidays.  The older one gets the greater one pays for those indiscretions!

January is almost over, and I will have reached my goal of having dug out of 2015 'stuff'.  It feels good.